ABSTRACT Background: International investigations of public awareness of aphasia indicate low levels of awareness and knowledge. Many studies identify the media as a powerful mechanism for increasing public awareness of health conditions. Media coverage of aphasia is lacking compared to other health conditions. To date, no research has investigated media coverage of aphasia in Ireland. Aims: To investigate

ABSTRACT Background: Slowed language production and comprehension in people with aphasia (PWA) is frequently cited as a characteristic of the disorder, even after full recovery. However, results supporting the existence of slowness are inconsistent and the mechanisms are unclear. Previous research has failed to determine the neurocognitive locus of the slowing and whether it is due to left hemisphere

ABSTRACT Background: Social isolation and loneliness are often present after aphasia and lead to negative health, social, and physical outcomes. Maintaining social connections after aphasia has been identified as an important target for intervention, but is not regularly addressed in aphasia intervention. While many persons with aphasia maintain relationships with immediate family members after brain

ABSTRACT Background: Assessment of working memory is fundamental in any evaluation of cognitive abilities. Working memory is crucial in the processing of any linguistic stimuli. Encoding, storing, and manipulating information in working memory are critical for perception as well as cognition. The decline in working memory has been reported in normal as well as pathological aging. Aims: The present

ABSTRACT Background: Aphasia creates pervasive communication barriers that make participation in society difficult. There are well over 150,000 Canadians with aphasia, but very few people have heard of it. The consequences of this lack of knowledge is that businesses and organizations are ill-equipped to accommodate customers with this invisible disability. The present study introduces the Aphasia-Friendly

ABSTRACT Background: Recent reviews conclude that aphasia intervention is effective. However, replication and implementation require detailed reporting of intervention is and a specification of participant profiles. To date, reviews concentrate more on efficacy than on intervention reporting quality. Aims : The aim of this project is to review the descriptions of aphasia interventions and participants

ABSTRACT Background: The Structured External Memory Aid Treatment (SEMAT) is a recently developed compensatory cognitive intervention that systematically teaches external memory aids (EMAs) and strategies to older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Preliminary efficacy evidence for the SEMAT is encouraging and suggests that treatment effects (i.e., using EMAs) may persist over a year after

ABSTRACT Background: Since design and publication of the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB), increasing use to assess patients with aphasia in a clinical and research setting in stroke and in degenerative disease of the brain became evident. It has proven to be useful in determining the severity of and nature of the language impairment and providing clues for the location and function of the brain structures

ABSTRACT Background: Changes in the everyday life and health of the significant others (SOs) of people living with stroke sequalae have been widely investigated. However, information regarding the frequency of the changes in daily life and the variables most associated with these perceived life changes is limited. Aims: To examine the extent to which SOs of persons with aphasia (PWAs) experience changes

ABSTRACT Background: Intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) administered to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (LDLPFC) has been shown to advance working memory (WM) abilities. At the same time, WM training is widely used to enhance learning associated with low language skills. An emerging area of research is that of applying cortical stimulation as an adjunct to behavioural therapy to improve

ABSTRACT Background In clinical practice and in research, aphasia measurement instruments are used for many reasons: to screen and diagnose, to identify deficits and strengths, and to measure outcomes. A proliferation in available measurement instruments presents challenges to both the aphasia clinician and researcher and forms a barrier to optimal practice. There is a need for a comprehensive review

ABSTRACT Background : Definitions reflect the current state of knowledge about a health condition. An agreed definition of aphasia is central to the progression of the science and clinical practice relevant to aphasia. Aim : To establish consensus on a definition of aphasia. Methods & Procedures : A three-round modified e-Delphi study was conducted with aphasia researchers who were members of the Collaboration

ABSTRACT Background: The production of autobiographical narratives requires linguistic structures and the ability to access and generate both semantic information and episodic details of personal events. Aims: This study investigated autobiographical narratives produced by individuals with established semantic memory impairments (semantic variant primary progressive aphasia; svPPA) or episodic memory

ABSTRACT Background Aphasia affects approximately one-third of stroke survivors and has a significant impact on their health-related quality of life (HRQL). Aims This study assessed the psychometric properties of HRQL instruments and related constructs designed for use in people with aphasia (PWA) for use in individual clients or clinical trials, i.e., individual-level and group-level decision-making

ABSTRACT Background Lexical retrieval models help to determine the locus of difficulty in individuals with anomia. It is generally assumed that phonological cueing facilitates naming in individuals with phonological output lexicon deficits while semantic cueing facilitates naming in those with semantic lexical deficits. Evidence from treatment studies is not always consistent with this assumption,

ABSTRACT Aims This study aimed to standardize and assess the psychometric properties of a selected protocol of subtests from the Psycholinguistic Assessments of Language Processing in Aphasia (PALPA), a battery of tests that measures a wide range of language abilities underpinned by a cognitive neuropsychological model of language processing. Methods One hundred healthy participants were recruited

(2020). Aphasia management in growing multiethnic populations. Aphasiology: Vol. 34, No. 11, pp. 1314-1318.

ABSTRACT Background Decisive efforts are needed to expand the experimental, professional, and clinical foundations that will strengthen service provision and minimize service disparities in the growing ethno-geriatric caseloads with aphasia in post-stroke rehabilitation worldwide. Aim The purpose of this Special Issue was to provide an international, multi-perspective overview of the breadth and depth

ABSTRACT Background There is extensive literature on the impact of aphasia on human interactions, with findings including family tension and reduced participation affecting the person with aphasia’s ability to adapt to life post-stroke. However, research on relationships between people with aphasia and their pets is sparse. Studies in other healthcare fields have found benefits and drawbacks of pet

ABSTRACT Background The speculation that apraxia of speech (AOS) is not a unitary diagnosis, but consists of different subtypes instead, has been around for decades. However, attempts to empirically substantiate such a notion remain few and far between. Aims The primary objective of this article is to consider the different bases for identifying subtypes of AOS, review existing evidence regarding subtypes

ABSTRACT Background Social communication impairments following acquired brain injury (ABI) are well-documented. There is evidence that group interventions are beneficial but research into validated instruments to measure group outcomes is a new field of investigation. Aims This study reports on the inter-rater reliability of three established social communication measures for use with group interaction

ABSTRACT Background Meditation practices have been found to improve both cognitive and psychological functions related, in particular, to attention and well-being in both healthy people and those with chronic health conditions, including stroke. Considering the range of cognitive and psychosocial consequences in people with post-stroke aphasia, meditation has been identified as a potential rehabilitative

ABSTRACT Background The law is leading a cultural shift away from medical paternalism towards shared decision-making with patients. A person’s ability to make decisions about their care and treatment is regulated through mental capacity law in the UK. A verbal interview is used to judge a person’s capacity. People with aphasia (PwA) may retain the cognitive ability to make decisions but have difficulty

ABSTRACT Background Although facilitated group conversations for aphasia are a popular practice within contemporary clinical aphasiology, only a small number of published studies have shed some light on how interaction occurs in this setting. One aspect of aphasia group conversation that has been mentioned in the literature but that has not yet been the focus of intensive study is participation management

ABSTRACT Background Research investigating public awareness of aphasia internationally shows limited awareness and knowledge. This is concerning because the literature suggests that awareness of aphasia contributes to the health, community participation and psychosocial wellbeing of people with aphasia and their families. Increased awareness promotes inclusion and influences investment in research

Background In the last decades technologies have started to be integrated into language rehabilitation, but more recently many innovations have been included in the health field, especially the use of virtual reality (VR) and mobile devices. Aim The present review aims to investigate the use and efficacy of innovative technology-based interventions for language rehabilitation in post-stroke patients

Background It is not conclusively explored what kind of reorganisation processes are set off after a stroke with resulting aphasia. Since the development of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), linguistic processes and their neural representation have been researched, especially in aphasic patients after left hemispheric insult. The situation differs in aphasic patients with crossed aphasia

Background: Early recognition of post stroke aphasia is thought to be crucial to plan effective rehabilitation. The Aachener Aphasie Bedside Test (AABT) is a widely-used tool for aphasia assessment in acute phase. The AABT was translated into Italian (I-AABT) in 2011, but its psychometric properties had not yet been studied. Aims: The aims of the study were to assess the I-AABT 1) short-term test-retest

Background Stroke survivors with aphasia often experience reduced psychosocial well-being. Intensive comprehensive aphasia programs (ICAPs) are an ideal model in which to treat persons with aphasia (PWAs) to improve both cognitive-linguistic impairments and psychosocial well-being. Aims To investigate the impact of a university-based ICAP on psychosocial well-being using measures of depression, aphasia-related

Background: Verb and sentence processing impairments are frequently observed in people with aphasia (PWA). However, patterns of impairment (i.e. combinations of deficits that are revealed by arrays of tasks) are usually investigated at the group level, by selecting groups of patients with specific aphasia types (e.g., non-fluent variants with signs of agrammatism), or in case-series with relatively

Background: Aphasia research has been informed by linguistic theory to a great extent. Conversely, linguistic theory has also been informed by data from people with aphasia, albeit to a lesser extent. Aims: This overview to the Special Issue of Aphasiology entitled “Aphasia and linguistic theory: What we have captured so far” presents a narrative review that aims to illustrate the contribution of linguistic

(2020). Publisher’s note. Aphasiology: Vol. 34, No. 8, pp. 1111-1111.

Background In 2015, researchers called for the preferred use of the term “aphasia” and the elimination of the term “dysphasia”. They determined that speech-language pathologists, researchers and consumer organizations prefer the term “aphasia”. However, individuals with aphasia, their family members and friends are faced with a probably unknown disorder and may rely on the internet to provide the information

Background Storytelling is fundamental to human communication yet is under-represented in aphasia therapy research and clinical practice. Access to care may be one obstacle; in the broader healthcare context, remote modes of treatment delivery can increase individuals’ access to care. EVA Park is a highly novel, online platform designed with people with aphasia that has shown capacity to improve aspects

Background Both reading speed and comprehension at the text level are often impaired in people with aphasia, potentially impacting their daily life. Provision of advance context (e.g., pictures provided to the reader prior to reading) is found to facilitate text processing and comprehension in typical readers. However, there has been no investigation of whether advance context influences reading in

Background The ability to efficiently select specific aspects of our semantic representations that are relevant for current goals or the context is supported by semantic control processes (controlled semantic cognition framework). This semantic control component is impaired in patients with semantic aphasia, who have multimodal semantic impairment following left hemisphere stroke and are highly sensitive

Background The severity of post-stroke aphasia has also been reported to be less in bilingual patients compared to their monolingual counterparts Aim To analyze the effect of bilingualism on aphasia recovery during the early post-stroke phase. Methods Bengali version of Western Aphasia Battery (WAB)was used for language assessment. It was administered during the first week and 90–100 days post-stroke

Background Improvement in daily life activities such as conversation has been prioritized by people with aphasia, which has led to an increased interest in developing and evaluating therapies that target conversation abilities. However, many questions remain about reliable and valid procedures for examining outcomes related to conversation. In this paper, we detail a procedure for quantifying conversational

Background Therapeutic songwriting (TSW) is an activity used with people who have neurological and psychological conditions. TSW can act as a tool for assisting people with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) struggling to regain coherence and meaning amidst the psychosocial sequelae that often accompanies this chronic, progressive medical condition. With help from a facilitating clinician, TSW addresses

Background Aphasia negatively impacts face-to-face social participation and the difficulties that people experience using the phone exacerbate these challenges in staying in touch with family and friends. Videoconferencing enables multimodal communication, and teamed with supported conversation, could facilitate access to conversation and thereby increase social participation for people with chronic

Background Attention deficits frequently accompany language impairments in aphasia. Most research on attention in aphasia focuses on selective attention measured by executive control tasks such as the color-word Stroop or Erickson flanker. This is despite ample evidence in neurotypical adults indicating the existence of multiple, distinct attention subtypes. Thus, there is a disconnect between the

Introduction Few self-administered outcome measures are available for communication partner training (CPT) programs for aphasia. The Aphasia Attitudes, Strategies, and Knowledge (AASK) survey was developed to align with and evaluate three key ingredients of the Supported Conversation for adults with Aphasia (SCA™) communication partner training model. The AASK is a new, clinically feasible tool that

Background Recovery from stroke-related aphasia follows different stages, evolving from the acute and subacute phase (< 6 months post stroke) into the chronic phase (> 6 months post stroke). In general, phonology remains tenaciously disturbed, making it a relevant language marker to assess in every stage of recovery. The classical behavioural evaluation of phonological abilities in patients with aphasia

ABSTRACT Background Apraxia of speech (AOS) can be caused by neurodegenerative disease and sometimes is its presenting sign (i.e., primary progressive apraxia of speech, PPAOS). During the last several decades, our understanding of PPAOS has evolved from clinical recognition to a fuller understanding of its core and associated clinical features, its distinction from but relationship with primary progressive

Background Several studies have revealed an association between stress and language in nonclinical and aphasia groups. Laughter is considered to be an important contributor to physical and mental health including physiological and self-reported perceived stress. Simulated laughter programs, such as Laughter Yoga (LY), are a way to engage a person in the act of laughter without a humorous stimulus.

Background Several studies on agrammatic aphasia have suggested a selective deficit in the production and processing of temporal reference to the past. To account for this pattern of performance, the PAst DIscourse LIinking Hypothesis was formulated (PADILIH). The PADILIH assumes an impairment of discourse-linking operations in agrammatic aphasia, which manifests in greater difficulty with reference

Background The Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) is one of the most widely used batteries for assessing people with aphasia. Despite longstanding use, it is unclear how the individual components of the battery contribute to the aphasia quotient (AQ), which profiles aphasia severity. Objectives The primary objective of this study was to explore the individual contributions of the four major components (Spontaneous

Background Within the last four decades, individuals with aphasia have been observed to face difficulties in understanding complex sentences despite having good understanding of single words. The difficulties observed have been proposed to follow a pattern predicted by the theory of grammar, making the deficit a special case of an underspecified language competence. Aims The purpose of this study is

Background Notable positive change arising from the struggle with a major crisis (known as posttraumatic growth – PTG) has been reported following war, accidents and life-threatening illnesses. Whilst negative changes following aphasia are well-documented, positive changes, such as PTG, have not been sufficiently explored. Aims To determine whether people with aphasia can experience PTG throughout

ABSTRACT Background It has been demonstrated that reference to the past is difficult for individuals with agrammatic aphasia, leading to the formulation of the PAst DIscourse LInking Hypothesis (PADILIH). Many of the previous studies have focused on Indo-European languages, in which time reference is expressed through verb inflection. The current study examined the PADILIH in Thai, a language that

ABSTRACT Background Chronic severe Wernicke’s aphasia has a poor prognosis and is challenging to treat. Furthermore, even when there is potential for improvement, formal assessments using accuracy scores only to measure changes in language abilities after treatment may not be sensitive enough to capture improvements. Less-constrained language tasks, such as discourse analysis, may be more sensitive

Background Many people with aphasia have a strong desire to participate in reading activities despite persistent reading challenges. Digital reading devices and text-to-speech (TTS) technology are increasing in popularity and have the potential to help people with aphasia. Systematic investigation of modifiable TTS features provides a means of exploring this potential. Aims This study’s aim was to

ABSTRACT Background: Spoken word retrieval therapy forms an integral part of aphasia therapy. Due to the range of therapy options and variations, drawing clear-cut conclusions from the evidence base can be challenging. Aims: This paper consolidates recent findings (2008–2018), pertinent to spoken word-finding interventions. Specifically, we are interested in aphasia interventions: (1) that target single-word

Background Improved discourse production is a priority for all key stakeholders in aphasia rehabilitation. A Cochrane review of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) for aphasia found speech and language therapy treatment to be effective for improving the ability to communicate in everyday interaction. However, this large-scale review did not focus exclusively on treatment for discourse production and

Background Aphasia is a devastating disorder occurring in more than 30% of stroke victims. Speech and language therapy (SLT) is the treatment of choice for post-stroke aphasia (PSA) in acute and chronic periods, yet benefits are limited and gains in several language domains are not always translated to both untreated deficits and functional communication. Therefore, pharmacotherapy and non-invasive

ABSTRACT Background The impact of stroke and aphasia has been recognised as a family problem for many years with studies highlighting spouses’ need for information at different times along the recovery journey, for practical and emotional support, recognition, and respite. In particular, the decision-making around discharge from hospital, or planning for rehabilitation, is not always collaborative

Background A reduced quality of life for people with aphasia is in part associated with their loss of friendships and social networks. Twitter offers people with communication disability a way to exchange information, develop and maintain their social networks and connections, and participate in society online. However, little is known about how Twitter is used to exchange information about aphasia

Background Speech and language therapists in Gulf Arabic countries still rely on informal aphasia and/or translated western-language assessments to assess the language proficiency of people with aphasia. However, these tests are not sensitive to the linguistic and cultural features of the Arabic language, which may lead to inaccurate diagnosis. This paper describes the preliminary development and psychometric

Background: The complexity of speech motor control, and the incomplete conceptualisation of phases in the transformation of the speech code from linguistic symbols to a code amenable to a motor system, tend to obscure the understanding of acquired apraxia of speech (AOS). The four-level framework (FLF) of speech sensorimotor control suggests the differentiation between speech motor planning, programming

ABSTRACT Background: Guidelines to support accessible goal setting with stroke survivors with aphasia are lacking. Aims: This review aimed to (i) determine the communication barriers and facilitators relevant to accessible goal setting for stroke survivors with aphasia and (ii) propose recommendations for accessible goal setting practice. Design: We conducted a narrative literature review incorporating